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13.08.2007/ A modified version of the Toyota-United Pro Cycling
Team lead-out train helped deliver Ivan Dominguez to victory Sunday in the final stage of the two-day, three-stage Tour of
Elk Grove. Health Net's Nathan O’Neill won the overall.
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| Ivan Dominguez took his 3rd win in four weeks (picture: Kurt Jambretz, Action images) |
Dominguez won a close bunch sprint at the end of the 68-mile (110 km) Gullo
International Criterium to score his 12th win of the season and finish fifth overall. Taylor Tolleson (Team Slipstream powered
by Chipotle) held on for second in the sprint while Martin Gilbert (Kelly Benefits Strategies/Medifast Pro Cycling) was third.
Three of Toyota-United’s lead-out specialists – Ivan Stevic, Henk Vogels and Caleb Manion – are
out with injuries. But capably filling in for them Sunday were Chris Baldwin, Heath Blackgrove and Justin England. The trio
set the stage for the two most powerful engines on the lead-out train – Sean Sullivan and Chris Wherry – who piloted
Dominguez into position for the final lap of the 1.7-mile (2.7 km) course.
“I told the guys that as long as
they kept me safe to the last turn, I would be OK,” Dominguez said.
The victory was the 33rd of the season for
Toyota-United and its 13th at a National Race Calendar event. Toyota-United entered the weekend in second place in the NRC
team standings, 116 points behind three-time defending NRC team champion Health Net presented by Maxxis.
“Today,
we got it dialed in perfectly,” England said. “We covered moves early on, we took the front with six laps to go
and we got a little help from other teams that had interests in the sprint as well.”
Near the halfway point
of the race, a group of six riders escaped the clutches of the peloton and gained more than 90 seconds’ lead. But a
combination of sprints for several lucrative primes and the chasing efforts of Team Slipstream and Jittery Joe’s brought
the break back.
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| Toyota United took the front with seven miles to go in Sundays criterium (picture Kurt Jambretz) |
From there, Toyota-United organized at the front to control the final minutes of the race that was run under
a blazing sun with temperatures in the mid 90s.
Dominguez said he honed in on the wheel of Fred Rodriguez (Predictor-Lotto)
with about 20 laps to go. Rodriguez had won Saturday’s 50-mile (80 km) Elk Grove Village Bank & Trust Circuit Race
and was eyeing a victory Sunday to overtake Citi Prologue Time Trial winner Nathan O’Neill (Health Net) in the overall
standings.
“He (Rodriguez) was moving around a lot and with so many good guys all over the place, I tried to get
our guys on the front early to be safe,” Dominguez said.
Rodriguez finished fifth Sunday to wind up fourth overall,
tied on time with Dominguez. O’Neill held on as the overall winner, followed by a pair of Team Slipstream riders –
Mike Friedman and Tim Duggan – who were three and six seconds behind, respectively.
Wherry said the job of shepherding
Dominguez was made much easier because of the form the Cuban super sprinter is enjoying. Dominguez’s victory was his
third in the past four weekends.
“Ivan is super quick right now,” Wherry said. “He seems like he’s
where he was before he crashed. All of these races are a lottery in a sense. But he’s really good about getting himself
in position.”
“We lucked out a bit this week,” said Nathan O’Neill of the Health Net Pro Cycling Team
Presented by Maxxis after wrapping up an improbable overall win at the Tour of Elk Grove Sunday afternoon. “It’s
amazing to think that we could win a prologue and gamble that all the time bonuses the next two stages wouldn’t go to
certain riders.”
“The second stage Saturday evening, we tired to be aggressive, but it was too fast,” O’Neill
explained. “We were just hurting ourselves. So today, we gambled and just tried to follow wheels, and see what happened.
Frankly, with all the time bonuses, we expected to lose the lead today.”
“Freddie [Rodriguez, Predictor-Lotto] probably woke up this morning thinking ‘today is my day,’”
O’Neill said. “I woke up today thinking it was his day, too. But it didn’t work out that way. That’s
bike racing.”
O’Neill added that the format of the race, with all the time bonuses available, made for
an exciting finish. “It was great for the promoter,” he said. “The race came right down to the wire.”
Results
Prologue
1 Nathan O'Neill (Health Net presented by Maxxis) 8.30
(47.647 km/h)
2 Mike Friedman (Team Slipstream)
0.03
3 Timmy Duggan (Team Slipstream)
0.06
Stage 1
1 Freddie Rodriguez (Predictor-Lotto)
1.58.33
2 David McCook (Kelly Benefit)
3 Sebastian Haedo (Rock Racing)
Stage 2
1 Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United)
2 Taylor Tolleson (Slipstream-Chipotle)
3 Gilbert Martin (Kelly Health
Benefits/Medifast)
Final General Classification
1 Nathan O'Neill (Health Net)
2 Mike Friedman (Slipstream-Chipotle)
3 Timmy Duggan (Slipstream-Chipotle)
Related stories:
Race reports
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